—on your own body?!

Among the further allegations was that he had ordered two men—an imam and a muezzin—to be flogged a thousand lashes each because they had torn down a house of idols and converted it into a mosque.

He was also said to possess a copy of Kalila wa Dimna, a book containing statements of unbelief, lavishly adorned with jewels and gold; he excused himself by claiming that he had inherited it from his father.

Another charge held that the non-Arab dignitaries who corresponded with him (1) began their letters with the formula, “To the god of gods, from his servants,” and that he sanctioned this. He protested that he merely allowed them to keep the style their forefathers had used when writing to his own ancestors, and that he feared ordering them to desist lest they look down on him.

At that the vizier burst out, “Woe to you! Would you have spared even Pharaoh (2) when he declared, ‘I am your Lord, the Most High’ ” (Q 79:24)?

It was further alleged that he had written to al-Māziyār urging him to rebel, and had egged him on to revive the ancient Magian faith and make it prevail over the Arabs, the people of the West, and the Turks; that he preferred meat from an animal that had been strangled to that of an animal properly slaughtered; and that every Wednesday he would summon a black sheep, cut it in two with a sword, walk between the halves, and then eat them.

Because of all this al-Muʿtaṣim ordered Bugha the Elder (3) to drag him off to prison in utter humiliation. As he was led away he kept saying, “Indeed (4), I had expected this from you.”

In that same year ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṭāhir conveyed al-Ḥasan ibn al-Afshīn and his wife ʿUturjah bint Ashnās to Sāmarrāʾ.

The Hajj that year was led by Muḥammad ibn Dāwūd.

Among the notable deaths that year were Aṣbagh ibn al-Faraj (5), Saʿduwayh (6), and Muḥammad ibn Salām al-Baykandī (7).